Since May 2015, the Brazilian National Research and Educational Network's (RNP) Service Desk started an integrated service project, supporting customer institution in case of connectivity issues. Five Points of Presence (PoPs) – at the States of Alagoas, Rio Grande do Norte, São Paulo, Sergipe and Tocantins – were selected to take part of the pilot. With the initiative success, the model will be implemented in other States: Pará on August 15, Distrito Federal on August 22 and Ceará on September 9.

When the primary services on Service Desk was centralized, it was possible to accelerate the call opening process, as well as to standardize the service, available 24/7. The institutions still have various contact channels, including number of national and toll-free call, email and contact via WhatsApp and Telegram, where the user simply send a message describing the request, and a specialized technician will meet demand.

“The Service Desk receives the request from institutions aligned to the PoP, making the first contact to operators and technical and tactical escalations, monitoring the entire call cycle and ending with a confirmation from the institution. This procedure exempts the PoP so that it can be focused on secondary activities, such as equipment setup”, said the Integrated Service Manager, Francisco Júnior.

The model resulted in a great change for the Points of Presence. Now, the Service Desks only operates the PoP only when necessary. “Many times, some calls do not come to us, such as blackout or local issue”, said technical coordinator of the Point of Presence in the State of São Paulo (PoP-SP), Rogério Herrera Mendonça, also saying that the time saved can be used in other activities.

On March 2016, a satisfaction survey was carried out, with five PoPs served by the pilot, in order to identify the project improvement matters. Regarding the services provided by the Service Desk team, in matters of care, knowledge and responsiveness, 62% of interviewed persons rated as good and 37% as great. In relation to the degree of satisfaction with the process between the PoP and the Service Desk, 37% stated to be very satisfied. “The goal is to end 2016 with ten PoPs integrated to Service Desk”, says Francisco Junior.

Since July 11, the PoPs that were already served by Service Desk will also be monitored by Network Operations Centre of RNP, located in Distrito Federal (NOC-DF), receiving failure alerts in connectivity service of the user institutions. Everyday, the technicians will monitor about 220 circuits connecting the customer institutions of five PoPs containing at Ipê network. Upon detecting a fault, NOC-DF shoots a ticket for the Service Desk, starting the process of care. The forecast is that, by the end of the year, the PoPs of DF, PA, PR, CE and RJ also participate in the initiative.

“The main purpose of this work is to increase the service quality to final user. Thus, the integration between all areas included in the project until its resolution – Points of Presence and Information Technology, Operations and Integrated Service Management”, explained the RNP’s Information Technology manager, Emmanuel Sanches.